An aerie, of course, is “the nest of a bird of prey, as an eagle or a hawk” — or, metaphorically speaking, “a house, fortress, or the like, located high on a hill or mountain.” Aerie can also be spelled aery, eyrie, or eyry.

So, the store American Eagle seems to have opened up a lingerie shop called Aerie. You know … eagle … aerie? Makes sense, right? As in, if an eagle wanted to get amorous, it might say, “Hey baby, come on up to my aerie.”

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?

A lot of the insipidity or fatuity of the song has to do with the fact that the lyrics are so very mundane (or pedestrian). You have to have cereal before you go to the bus stop? Really? Is picking a seat in the car totally blowing your mind?

This song is so very bad that some might call it a travesty of modern pop music. A travesty is “a literary or artistic composition so inferior in quality as to be merely a grotesque imitation of its model.”

Yesterday was Thursday
Today it is Friday
We we we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes afterwards

Really? She tells us the days of the week? In chronological order? (Well, better than alphabetical order, I guess).

Because the song is so hilariously bad, it is spawned a number of parodies, or satirical imitations. Here is one lampoon of Black’s song:

Just when you thought nothing could get more fatuous, inane, insipid or vapid than “Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes afterwards,” this parody manages to lampoon those very utilitarian lyrics with, “Friday happens on Friday.”

PopEater recently ran this post about Charlie Sheen’s very public meltdown.

Notice the word turpitude. Turpitude means depravity, baseness of character, or corrupt or depraved acts. It is often used in the phrase moral turpitude, a legal term that describes depraved behavior.

Worried about her grandson’s turpitude “ as evinced by his constant detentions and a three-day stay in a juvenile jail “ Mrs. Worthington offered to pay for military school.

It’s hard to fathom the kind of turpitude required to make a movie that could get banned in modern-day Europe! When I read the screenplay, I nearly threw up.

Gloss over, paper over, and whitewash are all expressions for covering up a problem, insult, etc. rather than addressing it or fixing it. Think of a dirty floor that you just put a pretty rug on top of instead of cleaning.

Because gloss is slippery (think of lip gloss), gloss over often has the sense of trying to smoothly and quickly move on to something else.

“Origin story” is an expression for a superhero’s backstory — for instance, Superman was born on Krypton just before it was destroyed. Many words also have fascinating origin stories. While English comes largely from Latin (and from Greek, and from Latin through French and Spanish, with some Germanic roots and a bit of Sanskrit, etc.), you’ll find that word usage can change quite bit over a couple thousand years.

A toady is someone who flatters or acts in a servile manner for self-serving reasons.

Look at that toady, sucking up and offering to do the boss’s Christmas shopping for his kids. Gross.

Toady comes from toad-eater, after magicians’ assistants who would supposedly eat poisonous toads so the magician could show off his ability to magically expel the poison. Toadeat used to mean do any degrading thing for your boss, but today you can use toady as a verb (or toady up to someone) for this purpose.

A token can be a sign, symbol, mark, or badge; a souvenir or memento; a coin-like disk used as currency for subways, arcade games, etc.; or a person, thing, or idea taken to represent an entire group.

Token can also be an adjective meaning “of very little or merely symbolic value.”

That definition about “a person, thing, or idea taken to represent an entire group” has a little more to it, though. From Wikipedia’s page on tokenism:

Tokenism refers to a policy or practice of limited inclusion of members of a minority group, usually creating a false appearance of inclusive practices, intentional or not. Typical examples in real life and fiction include purposely including a member of a minority race (such as a black character in a mainly white cast, or a woman in a traditionally male universe) into a group. Classically, token characters have some reduced capacity compared to the other characters and may have bland or inoffensive personalities so as to not be accused of stereotyping negative traits. Alternatively, their differences may be overemphasized or made “exotic” and glamorous.

By the same token is an expression that means the speaker will then say something based on the same evidence he or she used for what was previously said.

I am starting to realize that this law firm hired me to be its token woman. There I am, smiling in all the ads “ but I never actually get to work on important cases.

I am giving you this Best Friends Forever necklace as a token of our friendship.

The charity did pay me a token amount to speak. I offered to speak for free, but the president gave me a check for a small amount as a measure of respect.

As a libertarian, he wants to abolish the IRS. By the same token, he wants drugs legalized.

This recent article from the UK’s Daily Mail contained several GRE-appropriate vocabulary words.

Plaudits (always plural) means an enthusiastic expression of approval. The word shares a root with applaud, laud, and laudation, and is used similarly to the (also plural) kudos.

Gilded means “covered or highlighted with gold or something of a golden color,” or “having a pleasing or showy appearance that conceals something of little worth.”

You probably remember the “Gilded Age” from U.S. History, a time in which the upper class lived opulent lifestyles and gave lavishly to philanthropic causes, but also a time in which a class divide was growing and labor unrest was brewing. From Wikipedia:

The term “Gilded Age” was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. The name refers to the process of gilding an object with a superficial layer of gold and is meant to make fun of ostentatious display while playing on the term “golden age.”

A common expression is “to gild the lily”, which means “to add unnecessary ornamentation, a special feature, etc., in an attempt to improve something that is already complete, satisfactory, or ideal.” After all, if you’ve already got a beautiful flower, why would you try to gold-plate it?

Today I graduated with my masters and also got engaged! It’s the best day of my life! Baking me a celebratory cake would just be gilding the lily.

Don’t confuse gild with guild, a medieval trade organization or any organization of people with related interests, goals, etc.

A Sylph is a slender, graceful woman or girl. No surprise there, right? Oh, here’s definition #2: “(in folklore) one of a race of supernatural beings supposed to inhabit the air.”

They’re so thin they EAT AIR! Okay, not exactly. From Dictionary.com, credited to Random House:

Sylph, salamander, undine ( nymph ), gnome were imaginary beings inhabiting the four elements once believed to make up the physical world. All except the gnomes were female. Sylphs dwelt in the air and were light, dainty, and airy beings. Salamanders dwelt in fire: a salamander that lives in the midst of flames (Addison). Undines were water spirits: By marrying a man, an undine could acquire a mortal soul. (They were also called nymphs, though nymphs were ordinarily minor divinities of nature who dwelt in woods, hills, and meadows as well as in waters.) Gnomes were little old men or dwarfs, dwelling in the earth: ugly enough to be king of the gnomes.

That’s pretty incredible. I think I’ve seen a few gnome/sylph romances among the rich and famous.